I've tried to give an overview of some fine music without recycling too many tired, ubiquitous hits. It's a group of favourites I'd play for someone hanging around in my studio over a beer, pausing after every song while I sleeve the record and ask "Isn't that great ?" There is madness: screaming southern guitar players that tap into a strain of deep wildness, scaring the daylights out of parents and responsible citizens, who blamed the evil influence of black music for corrupting their sons and loosening their daughter's morality. And who were these terrifying blacks? Seasoned R&B veterans who found their tour busses on highways merging with a stream of jalopies carrying rockabilly combos banging guitars. Each listened to the other, and on overnight AM radio shows and Rock & Roll Revues staged in major towns, they played side by side. They caused riots. Curfews descended to protect impressionable white youth, but radio DJ's and hastily-pressed independent records undermined the solid citizens.

Consider this collection the line-up of Steinski's Rather Large Rock & Roll Revue, shuffling the years and influences in party style. We've booked some straight-up craziness, represented by Sonny Burgess's "We Wanna Boogie", Billy Lee Riley's "Flying Saucers Rock & Roll", Wanda Jackson's "Long Tall Sally" and Oscar Wills' original version of "Flatfoot Sam". Listen to Riley's mad lyrics about the "little green men" from Mars teaching him how to do the bop. Feel the vocal quality of Wanda Jackson, who appears to be channelling every raging hormone in the immediate vicinity. No wonder the adults were terrified. There are arguable crossovers, spotlighting Chuck Berry's lyrical greatness in "Too Much Monkey Business" and the chunky Bo Diddley rhythm of Johnny Otis's "Willie And The Hand Jive". Enjoy the classic jump blues/R&B of Joe Turner's "Honey Hush" Bullmoose Jackson's "Watch My Signals", "Lovin' Machine" by Wynonie Harris and "That's It" by Amos Milburn. Recognize the references to sex and alcohol scattered through these cuts, and understand the menace they symbolized. There's more to the vocals here than shouted blues and hiccupping hillbillies singing through slapback echoes : There's the smooth weirdness of Clarence Palmer's ululations in "Bad Boy", the comic harmonies of jailbait love in the Coasters' "Young Blood", the tale of financial stress in the Drifter's "Money Honey", the proto-teenybopper voices of the Bobbettes' "Mr. Lee" and the Driver's suave, alcohol-burning "Smooth, Slow, and Easy".

New Orleans represents in several ways: Roy Brown's "Slow Down, Little Eva" sits on a Latin-esque track featuring the baddest cowbell ever. Dave Bartholomew, a giant of New Orleans production, sings his tune "The Monkey" with lyrical insight and real outrage. Smiley Lewis, a fabulous vocalist who couldn't seem to make it out of the south, fronts Fats Domino's band for his version of "I Hear You Knocking", complemented by The Spiders' "Don't Knock". Instrumentally, don't miss Paul Burlison's guitar behind Johnny Burnette on "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee". Sam Price, a session pianist who's all over early rock and roll material from New York, leads his own quintet on "Juke Joint" and Paul Williams, a killer sax player, fronts his band in "The Twister". Many of the acts onstage here don't fit into any one category other than just plain fabulous. Big Maybelle (300 pounds big) demonstrates her "New Kind Of Mambo". Eddie Cochran shows up with the original version of the much-covered "Summertime Blues". Jackie Brenston steps up to the mic in front of Ike Turner and his band to cut what some people think may be the first rock and roll record ever, "Rocket 88". Carl Perkins' first 7-inch for Sun has "Honey Don't" on the b-side. The Blue Dots – about whom nobody seems to know very much at all – beg to "Please Don't Tell 'Em (What You Said Last Night)" and Chuck Willis (in a turban, no less), closes the show with the anthemic "(I Don't Wanna) Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes."

Not a bad program. Of course, space is tight in the liner notes, so I can't go into things like producers, studios, labels, musicians, good books to read – things that put context and detail into the presentation, and change the line-up from a one-dimensional bunch of Golden Oldies into the inflammatory material that terrified parents and supercharged the post-war world..

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